Nathan Yocum - The Zona

After the rains subsided a bit, Rancho heated up. Not a normal heat; a moist, sweaty heat. Like a swamp. The sand turned green with algae and muck. Then came locusts, mosquitoes, flying bugs I couldn’t name if I wanted to, eating everything leafy that wasn’t covered up, or sucking the blood off the animals.

We had greenhouses and water catchments. Rain came and went. The first few months were actually pleasant aside from occasional skirmishes with gangs. The refugees for the most part integrated with the flock. We took in lone survivors and refugee families if they came to our walls looking sane and safe. Many adopted our religion with the understanding that those who didn’t were free to go when the federals restored everything. Television and radio were still up with emergency broadcasts, but the messages were old. Cell phone service, internet; they all went out with the collapsed infrastructure. The news we got was from wandering refugees and the occasional people we took in. News in those days was all about hope. Everyone wanted to believe that the rebuild was coming. The government would come back and relocate the refugees, rebuild the economy. They would reclaim the United States and regain their happy lives.

The seasons changed with no word from the federals. Everything was so hot and balmy with goddamn bugs everywhere. It was in the first summer that the sick broke out.

One day our gate guards let in a family that had come from the south, Chula Vista or Del Mar. They carried a little boy, eight or so, covered in angry red bumps. The boy was pocked and feverish and the family swore it was chicken pox. We put him in the medical tent with other refugees, those with heat stroke or broken arms; the parents were fed and housed as best we could.”

“Was it small pox?” Lead asked.

“Of course it was,” Reverend Greek said bitterly.

“It was new small pox, virus one on the Zona list.

It tore through the compound for two weeks. Sickness moved like the devil’s snake, eating men and women whole and all we could do was isolate the virals and watch them die. We lost eighty-three. We buried them out past the south wall of the compound. The dirt was like muck and clay. The graves were wet, but we dug them as deep as the land allowed and, prayed over them. We stopped taking new refugees after that.

The scavengers just about vanished after the pox really took hold. The wild men were too sick to throw rocks at our walls or swing clubs. Even cut off from other humans, even after the new pox had run its course; we’d still get sick. I guess it was the bugs; mosquitoes, lice, God knows.

From a rifle tower I watched the smoke of funeral pyres run three hundred and sixty degrees. All those roving gangs and wannabe villages fell sick and burned their dead. I swear to Christ it got so bad the clouds rained ash and everything reeked of smoke and burnt meat.

I fought for the lives of my flock. Every sickness was like a challenge from God. I received these people and sheltered them and I felt the obligation of leadership. We had no doctors. Two of my flock were registered nurses before conversion. They ran the sick tent. One of them died four months into the calamity. She caught pneumonia and it took her apart. On her last day it sounded like she was breathing through glue. She whispered words we didn’t catch and then closed her eyes forever.”

Reverend Greek pulled a silver flask from his jacket pocket and took a sip.

“She was one of my wives. Her name was Ellen Dannon Bell and she was a believer. She was thirty-five years old, pretty face, thick-bodied but still good to look at; a real solid woman.”

Reverend Greek put the flask back into his jacket.

“I’d offer you some of this hooch, but I probably have leprosy and it’d be a shame for you to leave here with that.”

Lead looked past Reverend Greek out to the navy blue morning sky. The sun would soon come.

“How did you come to Tucson?” Lead asked.

“I walked.” Reverend Greek said with a laugh. “Though not straight away; we stuck it out in Rancho for about eight years. Aside from the viruses, it wasn’t difficult to stay put. We’d been an isolated community before. The refugees tolerated our religion and we tolerated them, lest they broke our laws. Families were formed, children were birthed. People worked together. The one punishment was exile. It didn’t take long for everyone to get in line. Plagues reduced our numbers pretty quick; the deaths bonded us, surviving bonded us, belief bonded us. We gardened in the compound. We rationed food and water best we could, but our stores dwindled. I told the flock to still themselves and wait for God’s deliverance. We’d given up on the government.

Worry rippled through my people like a current. Then came murmurs and whispers and quiet words of fleeing, of starting somewhere else. I refused to discuss the abandonment of my compound. From where I stood, the outside world was populated by feral men and animals. From the towers I watched them scavenge through the husks of the old world like coyotes, lean and desperate. There was no proof of better grounds. Humans stayed behind stone walls, to risk our safety was to risk those of us who had rightfully earned our lives by enduring the days of plague and sick.

Then one night I dreamed a dream. I was sitting on a hill immersed in long grass. The sky was blue again, not the dusty mess it had become. Out of the grass a rabbit appeared and sat next to me. The rabbit cleared his throat and I looked down at him.

“There’s not going to be any rain,” the rabbit said. “The weather is broken. Take your people across the desert, for they will die here.”

I woke happy. God had revealed himself to me. I gathered the flock and told them of my divine message. We were to cross the desert east. Las Vegas was the logical choice. City like that was built to accommodate three million, maybe more. Shelter wouldn’t be a problem. All those resorts were bound to have canned reserves, bottled water, swimming pools. We were destined to turn the city of sin into a city of holy gathering.

Preparation took very little time; we had been idle in our shelter and took enthusiastically to meaningful labor. We repaired our vans and got them to running condition. We hallowed out the cabs to better fit people and supplies. We stuffed the vans with sixty-three of my flock plus scant provisions. Twenty-four, including Jericho Ericson stayed in the compound to await our eventual return. The waiters trusted that God would provide or accept them into heaven shortly. They were martyrs in their minds. They’re probably still out there.”

Reverend Greek barked a sudden laugh and took another drink from his flask. He wiped his suit sleeve across his chin.

“I’ll bet Jericho is standing in one of my towers, old and mean, that same 30-06 strapped across his shoulder, waiting to shoot the devil himself.

Highway Fifteen to Vegas was an absolute mess. The parts that weren’t clogged with derelict cars were broken to rubble by bad weather and lack of upkeep. We traveled at a near crawl in the dirt next to the highway. We had eight vans in a line, like cowboy pioneers on the Oregon Trail. We’d cut portholes into the roofs with mobile platforms for riflemen. I was in the lead van, standing out on the platform, swinging a birch staff I’d fashioned from a table. I was Moses leading the chosen to the promise land.

We got to Barstow as the sun dipped into the horizon. The light refracted orange through a dusty sunset, and all was quiet except the hum of our engines.

Unfortunately, our calm didn’t last. A horn blast cleaved the evening stillness. The blare echoed off of empty cars and buildings and drowned out our engines, and then Barstow came alive.

Hundreds of men and women ran out of broken homes and buildings. I hesitate to call them men and women; they were caked in filth and rags and looked the very jagged edge of humanity. They were barbarians without leader or direction; they just swarmed us in a dead blind run over broken cars and debris.